Yaffle is a new tool created at Memorial University to better communicate university research to the public. As Globe and Mail writer Elizabeth Church put it, “A new search engine designed by Memorial University is aiming to make it easier for Joe Public to tap the know-how of the ivory tower.” For those interested in learning more about the project, I recommend having a look at the G&M article: Need to decipher academic material? Yaffle it. My initial look at the tool leads me to think that it is still rough around the edges. From my perspective, aggregating all academic research together in one place is not the major problem in Joe Public understanding academic research. The problem is more that the research itself uses terms and concepts that are unfamiliar and confusing to a non-specialist. That said, it is valuable to have a search engine specialize in academic research rather than the Internet more generally.
In digging through the search engine’s features, I’ve found some good aspects as well as weaknesses. Yaffle does well in demonstrating the link between academic research and economic gain, or showing where such links can be forged. In addition to research, Yaffle also showcases various projects in the works. For example, I came across this project designed to bring IT skills to central Newfoundland: Students Making IT Work For Small Businesses in Central Newfoundland. One area where Yaffle is weak is the expertise finder; one can only browse by academic department or name of expert. For a journalist or somebody who is looking for an expert, I doubt this would be very useful. It is like a library catalogue that restricts searching to title or author. One long term issue for the project’s success is that participation in it is voluntary and, as the Globe article referred to above states, “You can encourage professors to share their research, but there is no incentive for them to do that.” This remark reminds me of open access participation which is likewise not generally supported by formal incentives.
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